TEHRAN - Gholam Hossein Esmaili, head of Tehran province’s Justice Department, on Friday dismissed reports on releasing Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman, in a swap deal.

“Besides serving her current sentence, she has also another ongoing case against her in court... We do not know if she would be found guilty or not,” Reuters quoted Esmaili as saying.

“Iran’s Judiciary cannot confirm any of the claims in Western media about this case. When a decision is made, it will be announced by the Islamic Republic’s Judiciary or through diplomatic channels,” he said.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 38, has been imprisoned in Iran for 20 months for charges that include trying to orchestrate a soft overthrow of the Islamic Republic.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband Richard Ratcliffe told the Guardian newspaper and other British media on Thursday that her lawyer had said that her case had been marked as being eligible for early release.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was under fire for saying last month that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been in Iran “training journalists”. In his Tehran visit earlier in December, he was expected to pursue the case of Zaghari and consular cases of other dual nationals.

Iran, however, says it does not recognize dual nationals and considers dual citizens as Iranian citizens only.

NA/PA